Employment Pass Holder on Garden Leave: Pass and Salary Rules

Can a Singapore employer tell an Employment Pass holder to stop coming into the office, yet keep the pass valid and the salary running until the last day of notice? The short answer is yes, and the mechanics of an Employment Pass holder on garden leave turn on three questions: what the contract says about notice, what the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) requires before the pass is cancelled, and what continues to be owed in salary while the person is kept away from work.

Garden leave is common when a departing hire has access to sensitive client relationships or a deal needing a clean handover. For an Employment Pass holder, it sits at the intersection of contract law and immigration law. Get the sequencing wrong, cut the salary early, or delay the pass cancellation, and it is the employer, not the employee, who carries the exposure.

This guide sets out what garden leave means under Singapore law, how long an Employment Pass stays valid once someone is told not to attend work, and the notice-period arithmetic behind the final pay cheque. Figures are drawn from MOM’s published guidance as at 20 September 2026, with the as-at date for every threshold stated in-text.

What Garden Leave Means Under Singapore Employment Law

There is no standalone statutory concept of garden leave in Singapore’s Employment Act. Per MOM’s guidance on termination with notice (last updated 22 April 2026), an employee who resigns or is terminated must either serve the contractual notice period or pay salary in lieu of notice, and notice can only be waived by mutual written consent. Garden leave is a third, contractually created option: the employee stays employed and fully paid throughout the notice period, but the employer directs them not to attend the workplace.

The distinction that matters most is this: garden leave is not the same as salary in lieu of notice. Under salary in lieu, employment ends immediately and the employer pays out the unserved notice as a lump sum. Under garden leave, employment, and therefore the Employment Pass, keeps running for the full notice period even though the pass holder is not physically working. MOM’s FAQ on asking an employee to leave without serving notice (last updated 24 April 2026) confirms that route instead requires gross salary in lieu, plus final salary within three working days of the last day of work.

Does the Employment Pass Remain Valid Throughout Garden Leave?

Yes, provided the employment relationship has not actually ended. Per MOM’s guidance on how to cancel an Employment Pass (last updated 4 June 2024), an employer must cancel the pass only “if the pass holder no longer works for you”, and the trigger is the last day of notice, not the last day the person physically attended the office. Because a pass holder on garden leave is still contractually employed and still drawing salary, there is nothing to cancel until the notice period itself expires, and no separate MOM notification is triggered simply because attendance has stopped.

There is one hard limit. Per the same termination-with-notice guidance, an employee serving notice, including on garden leave, “is still considered an employee” of the current employer and should check before starting work with a new one. A pass holder on garden leave therefore cannot lawfully take up paid work with a new Singapore employer while still tied to the current Employment Pass, since the EP is employer-specific.

Garden Leave, Salary in Lieu and Working Notice Compared

Scenario	Does employment continue?	Is the EP still valid?	When must the EP be cancelled?
Working notice	Yes, until last day of notice	Yes	Within 1 week after the last day of notice
Garden leave (paid, told not to attend)	Yes, until last day of notice	Yes	Within 1 week after the last day of notice
Salary in lieu of notice	No, ends immediately	No, employment has ended	Within 1 week after the last day of work

Notice-Period Mechanics: Contract Terms and the Statutory Fallback

Most Employment Pass-level contracts specify a notice period of one to three months. Where the contract is silent, the Employment Act’s default scale applies. Per MOM’s termination with notice guidance (last updated 22 April 2026), the statutory notice period Singapore Employment Pass holders fall back on by length of service is as follows.

Length of service	Statutory notice period
Less than 26 weeks	1 day
26 weeks to less than 2 years	1 week
2 years to less than 5 years	2 weeks
5 years or more	4 weeks

Coverage matters here. Per MOM’s guidance on who is covered by the Employment Act (last updated 24 July 2025), all employees under a contract of service are covered, including foreign employees on a work pass, regardless of salary. The notice provisions sit outside Part IV (which excludes higher-paid managers and executives from rest-day and hours rules), so an Employment Pass holder is entitled to notice on the same footing as a local employee, counted in calendar days including public holidays and weekends.

Salary During Garden Leave: What Must Continue to Be Paid

Because garden leave keeps the employment relationship alive, the pass holder’s full salary and contractual entitlements must continue for the entire notice period, exactly as if they were still attending work. This is not discretionary; it is what distinguishes garden leave from an unpaid suspension, which Singapore law does not permit outside a formal disciplinary process.

One point often missed: Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions do not apply to an Employment Pass holder. CPF is payable only for citizens and permanent residents; the employer instead pays the Skills Development Levy on the same payroll, and this does not change because the person is on garden leave rather than actively working.

Cutting Salary During Garden Leave Can Break EP Eligibility

More consequential is salary reduction. Per MOM’s guidance on notifying MOM of changes (last updated 16 May 2025), an employer must submit a request at least one month before lowering a pass holder’s salary, and the pass holder must continue to meet the EP qualifying salary at the reduced figure, or the pass must be cancelled and a fresh application made. Per MOM’s Employment Pass eligibility page (last updated 28 April 2026), the current EP qualifying salary is S$5,600 a month for most sectors, rising with age to S$10,700 at age 45 and above, and S$6,200 a month for financial services, rising to S$11,800 at age 45 and above. These thresholds rise to S$6,000 and S$6,600 respectively for new applications from 1 January 2027 and renewals of passes expiring from 1 January 2028. Dropping a garden-leave employee’s salary below the applicable threshold, even for the final weeks of employment, risks invalidating the pass, quite apart from any wrongful-deduction claim.

Sequencing Garden Leave Through to Employment Pass Cancellation

A sensible sequence, drawn from MOM’s cancellation guidance, looks like this.

Step	Action	Timing
1	Issue written confirmation of the garden-leave arrangement	On the day notice is given or accepted
2	Continue paying full salary; do not lower it without the one-month MOM notification where applicable	Throughout the notice period
3	Seek tax clearance from IRAS by filing Form IR21	At least 1 month before the last day of employment
4	Submit the Employment Pass cancellation via EP eService	Up to 14 days before, or within 1 week after, the last day of notice
5	Arrange the return flight and settle final salary and leave	On or before the last day of employment

On tax clearance, MOM’s own cancellation guidance points employers to IRAS’s tax clearance process, to be started at least one month before the last day of employment. In a garden-leave scenario, the IR21 clock should run from the date notice begins, not from the date the person stops attending the office. This sequencing mirrors ordinary changing employer on an Employment Pass scenarios; the only difference is that the pass holder is paid and idle rather than paid and working. See also this sister-site guide to switching jobs as a Singapore Employment Pass holder for how the timing interacts with a new IPA.

Cancelling an Employment Pass Once Garden Leave Ends

Per MOM’s guidance on cancelling an Employment Pass, the employer or its employment agent must cancel the pass within one week after the last day of notice, and may submit the request up to 14 days in advance so it takes effect on the intended date. Once cancelled, the holder cannot work even while arranging to leave Singapore, and any dependant passes issued off the EP are cancelled automatically and cannot be reinstated.

If the pass holder is still in Singapore, the employer can request a Short-Term Visit Pass, granting a stay of up to 90 days while affairs are settled. Employers must give reasonable notice of repatriation and generally bear the cost of a flight home, unless the pass holder agrees in writing to cover it. For the full back-end checklist, see this guide to work pass cancellation and repatriation obligations, and the sister-site guide to cancelling a work pass in Singapore for the timelines employers most often miss.

Common Pitfalls When Managing Garden Leave for an Employment Pass Holder

Assuming Garden Leave Removes Dispute Exposure

Placing someone on garden leave does not remove an employer’s exposure if the pass holder later disputes the notice served or the salary paid during it. Foreign employees retain the same recourse to the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management as local staff, and a work pass cannot be withheld as leverage in a pay dispute. See this analysis of a foreign employee disputing their notice period.

Pairing Garden Leave With an Unreasonable Non-Compete

Garden leave is often paired with a post-employment non-compete, on the theory that the departing hire has already been kept from clients during notice. Singapore’s tripartite guidelines increasingly scrutinise how such clauses are drafted, and a lengthy garden leave stacked on a lengthy non-compete is exactly the pattern regulators have flagged. See guidance on managing non-compete clauses and the tripartite guidelines on restraint of trade before building garden leave into a senior exit.

Losing Track of the IR21 Deadline and a Mid-Notice Renewal

Because garden leave can run for one to three months, it is easy to lose track of the one-month IR21 filing window, which should be calendared from the day notice begins; see this guide to tax clearance and IR21 for departing work pass holders. Salary compliance does not stop mattering once someone is leaving either: if a renewal happens to fall due mid-notice, the pass holder must still clear the prevailing EP qualifying salary at renewal. Background on qualifying salary sits in this Employment Pass application walkthrough, and expatriate pass holders in their final Singapore tax year should see this guide to personal income tax for expats and EP holders.

Employment Pass Holder on Garden Leave: Getting the Sequence Right

Garden leave for a Singapore Employment Pass holder is straightforward once employment contract and immigration compliance are kept separate but synchronised. The pass stays valid for as long as the employment relationship does; salary must continue in full and cannot be quietly trimmed without triggering MOM’s one-month notification rule; and the cancellation clock only starts on the actual last day of notice, not the day the desk goes empty. Employers who document the arrangement in writing, keep salary untouched, and calendar the IR21 and cancellation deadlines from day one rarely run into difficulty.

Where the arrangement involves a senior hire, a contested resignation, or an overlapping pass renewal, it is worth having the sequencing checked before the garden-leave letter goes out. Little Big Employment Agency Pte Ltd, trading as Singapore Employment Agency, is a MOM-licensed employment agency advising Singapore employers on Employment Pass administration, from initial application through to notice-period and cancellation mechanics. Employers needing the corporate secretarial side alongside the work pass position can turn to Raffles Corporate Services for company law and statutory filing.

The Editorial Team, Little Big Employment Agency